I hope you’re loving this Storytellers blog circle as much as I am. When I was learning photography, I soaked in every single ounce of knowledge that anyone would share with me, and even today, I love learning from other documentary photographers. There’s always something to learn. We all approach scenes and light differently, and each have our own mental checklists we do when setting up a shot.

My mental checklist usually goes something like this:

• Are the shadows working for me or against me?
• Is light hitting my main subject?
• Should I expose for skin or highlights?
• What’s happening in the corners and edges of the frame?
• How can I make this un-boring? (Not a real word, I know, but it’s what I actually say to myself.)

Sometimes if I’m going for a specific mood then I’ll add in more questions, but for an every day picture with my kids, that’s what goes through my mind. It doesn’t always all come together on the first shot, and I often re-jig my plan after shooting a frame or two.

Last week we were all sick. ALL. OF. US. You already know how much fun we were having, right? We hadn’t been outside for days and I was getting pretty desperate to figure out new activities to keep 2 bored kiddos entertained. I’d been making dinner in the kitchen and heard my girls having a conversation in the play room next door. They’d rolled the paper out on the easel and were each colouring a picture on opposite sides. (And yes, they were totally still in their PJs at dinner time!) I had my camera on the kitchen counter, so I grabbed it and started thinking how to capture the scene.

I knew I didn’t want to crouch down to their level as they would have been backlit and I was worried I’d lose the detail of the crayons. I flipped my screen out, put my camera into live view and held it up above my head. Below are the first 3 shots I took.

I really wanted to get both of them colouring, but within about 5 seconds my youngest had moved on (see her escape in frame 1). I shifted my body around the easel to try and catch my oldest, but as soon as she saw me peering over she knew she was the subject of the photo and stopped drawing. So, I moved back to my original position and just waited. I liked the last frame but had caught my foot and cut heads off. I stretched my arms up a bit further and took one more shot.

That was it. I had both girls in the frame plus a story. It’s the story of my girls. One is interested in the activity and concentrating, and the other is longing to be somewhere else. And as much as I hate the plastic film we have to put on our windows in the winter, I’m glad I caught it in this image as it’s the story of our lives right now. One day, when we have new windows, I’ll forget how the girls used to rub their fingers over that plastic to hear the noise.

I chose to convert to black and white as I found their PJs all a bit too loud and competing for attention, and I wanted the attention to be on what they were doing instead of their clothes.

Settings for the final image: Nikon D750, 24-70mm lens. ISO 1600. 24mm. f/ 2.8. 1/320

Ready to hear another story behind the image? Click on through to learn from Andrea of Little Story Studio.

 

 

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